10 Best Email Marketing Software Platforms

Almost 60 percent of email users check their inboxes daily before doing anything else online.

That’s more high-intent traffic than any other avenue or platform you can use to reach your audience.

People signing up for your email list permit you to sell to them. You can market to them for as long as you want until they unsubscribe, but some businesses have fallen into the trap of believing that email marketing isn’t beneficial. Don’t be one of them.

According to a 2023 Litmus report, 87 percent of brands consider email marketing essential for business success. But with so much choice out there, which email marketing software platform is best for your business?

In this post, we’ll unveil some of the best email marketing software options for streamlining your campaigns and improving your ROI. Ready to dive in? Let’s start.

Key Takeaways

• Choosing the right email marketing tool tailored to your specific needs—such as segmentation, automation, or design—can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your campaigns.

• Utilizing email marketing tools with strong automation capabilities can save time and increase efficiency by streamlining repetitive tasks and automatically nurturing leads.

• Tools that support multi-channel marketing allow for cohesive campaigns across various platforms, maximizing your reach and engagement.

• Email marketing solutions designed for scalability can grow alongside your business, accommodating an increasing volume of contacts and more complex campaign needs.

• Tools with robust design features help create visually appealing and professional emails that capture attention and drive engagement.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• 1. Best Email Marketing Software for Multi-Channel Marketing: Omnisend
  • Key Features
  • Pricing
• 2. Best Email Marketing Software for Free Users: MailChimp
  • Key Features
  • Pricing
• 3. Best Email Marketing Software for Segmentation: ActiveCampaign
  • Key Features
  • Pricing
• 4. Best Email Marketing Software for Scaling Up: Drip
  • Key Features
  • Pricing
• 5. Best Email Marketing Software for Email Design: Stripo
  • Key Features
  • Pricing
• 6. Best Email Marketing Software for Lead Generation: OptinMonster
  • Key Features
  • Pricing
• 7. Best Email Marketing Software for Contests and Promotions: Wishpond
  • Key Features
  • Pricing
• 8. Best Email Marketing Software for Automation: Brevo
  • Key Features
  • Pricing
• 9. Best Email Marketing Software for Funnels: GetResponse
  • Key Features
  • Pricing
• 10. Best Email Marketing Software for Content Creators: ConvertKit
  • Pricing
• FAQs
• Conclusion

1. Best Email Marketing Software for Multi-Channel Marketing: Omnisend

According to the popular email marketing software tool Omnisend, businesses who use their platform for email and SMS marketing make $72 back for every $1 spent. 

Omnisend caters primarily to e-commerce businesses and stands out for its capabilities in multi-channel marketing, putting everything in one place, with several channels in one automation workflow, including your:

• SMS marketing
• social media marketing
• email marketing

With Omnisend, you can easily create emails using a variety of templates and drag-and-drop editing tools—perfect for new and novice marketers. Its pre-built automations are fantastic for larger-scale businesses, too, making it easy to set up automated workflows to save time and drive sales.

This email marketing software is also great at helping you increase conversions by using discount codes, scratch cards, and various informative add-ons (like PDFs).

Key Features

Notable features in Omnisend’s email marketing solutions include:

• Pre-built, 100 percent customizable email templates for attractive emails without coding or advanced email knowledge.
• Workflows that help you replicate top-converting email strategies.
• Lead generation pop-ups that increase ROI.
• Analytics dashboard for fixing mistakes and identifying opportunities.
• Pre-built automations for Review Requests, Follow-up Requests, and discounts.
  • These features automate gathering product reviews when an order is completed or as follow-up review requests, with options to add a discount as an incentive for customers to leave a review.
• You can segment your audience by product reviews submitted by customers using metrics like rating, title, name, text, and product attributes.
• Lnk.Bio and Chatarmin WhatsApp Marketing Tool integrations.

Pricing

One of Omnisend’s best features is its pricing structure. It offers free email marketing tools for subscribers with up to 500 monthly emails. 

Standard subscriptions (6,000 subscribers) cost $16 monthly, and the monthly Pro plan (unlimited subscribers) cost $59.

As a bonus, you also benefit from all of the platform’s features with any plan, including automation, recommended workflows, and A/B testing.

2. Best Email Marketing Software for Free Users: MailChimp

MailChimp might be famed for its email marketing tools, but it’s also a complete CRM platform that allows you to design landing pages, email capture forms, and much more. Its range of features helps businesses stay organized and execute marketing strategies.

However, be warned. MailChimp does have limitations on the number of lists you can create and how accurately you can segment your audience. 

Other features include integrations with Facebook and X, SurveyMonkey, Canva, and over 300 more, custom-coded templates, and a personalized product tour to onboard you.

Key Features

Some of the key features of the MailChimp platform are:

• Hundreds of integrations (for sites like Shopify).
• A CRM product suite of automation tools, behavioral targeting, and more.
• Appointment booking.
• Marketing automation, like retargeting ads and transactional emails.
• Customer journey and email builders.
• Analytics tools for email marketing like A/B testing, campaign performance, and more.
• AI tools for content generation and optimization, creative assistant for graphics, subject line helper, etc.

Pricing

If you need free email marketing tools to help you scale on a low budget, MailChimp is a great option. When you are just starting out, you can access its wide range of features for free.

However, when your list is scaling and you’re ready to start spending, you can purchase monthly plans for up to 10,000 emails. Essentials packages start at $13, Standard deals are $20, and the Premium plan is $350. 

You can also use the pay-as-you-go option if you send a limited number of emails rather than committing to a monthly subscription.

3. Best Email Marketing Software for Segmentation: ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is one of the best email marketing solutions for selling products to many different target audiences. 

Subscribers have become more selective using “[Name]” at the beginning of an email is not effective. Active Campaign allows segmentation (dividing your email list according to based on specific criteria like demographics, interests, buying behavior, or engagement level). This way, you can write a copy that caters to an individual’s specific pain points and concerns and addresses them personally.

Its segmentation capabilities allow you to easily separate your contacts into lists and customize your marketing for hyper-personalization (which can reduce the opt-out rate by 50 percent.)

ActiveCampaign helps you organize your list, target effectively, and create emails that convert.

Key Features

Here are some of the tools for email marketing that ActiveCampaign offers:

• The user-friendly Email Designer tool allows you to design and write emails that convert for specific audiences. It provides a drag-and-drop interface, pre-built templates, and other design options.
• Personalize emails based on various audience segmentation variables, such as abandoned carts and drip campaigns.
• A/B test to identify what converts and what doesn’t.
• Landing page builder.
• Create dynamic CTAs
• Design emails and access a CRM

Pricing

While ActiveCampaign doesn’t have free email marketing tools, you can get a free 14-day trial by giving them your email address.

The Starter plan is $8 for the first month, then $15 afterward. The Plus subscription starts at $49 monthly and includes automation and customer insights. The Pro package unlocks omnichannel marketing automation for a $79 monthly cost. The enterprise deal lets you ramp up your large-scale email campaigns and offers enterprise-level support. Pricing starts at $145 monthly.

4. Best Email Marketing Software for Scaling Up: Drip

When you want to scale, Drip is one of the most highly recommended email marketing tools out there. Its plans cater to businesses of all sizes, so you can scale up as the number of active subscribers and the amount of emails you send in a month grow.

Drip works to maintain a 99.8 percent deliverability rate, a 68 percent repeat purchase rate, and a 51 percent single email campaign open rate.

If you’re simply “dabbling” into email marketing, you can get started with Drip. If you already have a list of 10,000 email subscribers you want to use, don’t worry. They have a plan for you, too.

With robust automation capabilities, advanced segmentation options, and integrated analytics, you can efficiently manage an increasing subscriber base as your business scales.

The platform also provides weekly walkthroughs on how to use Drip better.

Key Features

Drip’s email marketing solutions include:

• Templates and drag-and-drop features in the editor.
• Data insights provide behavior-based automation.
• Email design tools.
• Industry-leading customer service.
• Automation to run multi-channel, evergreen marketing strategies.
• Integrations with Shopify Plus, Facebook Custom Audiences, and Strip.
• Segmentation tools.
• Pre-built playbooks and A/B testing.

Pricing

Drip offers a 14-day free trial. After that, the price is determined based on the number of active subscribers on your account and the monthly emails you send.

Prices start at $39 a month, but you can figure out your costs using the “How many people are on your email list?” tool on the Drip website.

5. Best Email Marketing Software for Email Design: Stripo

Not every business needs complicated software tools for email marketing. Stripo does one thing and does it well.

Stripo is an email marketing builder designed to integrate with other platforms like GetResponse and MailChimp. It allows users to access beautiful templates and create on-brand marketing messages. 

With over 1500 free HTML templates carefully crafted by professionals and guest designers, this platform’s beauty is in its choice of templates and user-friendly interface for customizing them.

Key Features

Some key features are:

• Thousands of templates in paid plans.
• HTML options for those who can code.
• Integration with tools for email marketing automation.
• Flexible layouts.
• Supports GIF, JPG, and PNG image formats.
• Free stock images and image storage.
• Code and photo editor.
• Font customization.

Pricing

Stripo offers a “free for life” plan that gives you free email marketing tools, like five test emails a day and ten stored emails. After that, you’ll have to upgrade to the basic plan, which is $15 monthly.

For more advanced users, there’s a $45 monthly “Medium” plan and a $95 monthly “Pro” plan, allowing access to additional features such as more email templates and customization options, image hosting, and integrations with additional tools.

Plus, you’ll get two months free if you sign up for the annual plan.

6. Best Email Marketing Software for Lead Generation: OptinMonster

OptinMonster describes itself as the “best growth acceleration and revenue maximization platform.” Its suite of tools aims to help businesses generate leads, increase sales, and grow email lists.

The standalone email marketing software has many features like opt-ins, pop-ups, triggers, templates, testing tools, integrations, and analytics.

It’s suitable for marketers, e-commerce businesses, agencies and consultants, and enterprises.

Optimonster is one of the best options for businesses that want to generate leads simply because of the versatility of the campaigns you can run. Examples include an exit-intent popup, floating bar, or fullscreen slide-in. 

They also have many gamification options, like countdown timers and gamified wheels. These are valuable because the average human’s attention span has decreased over the last 20 years from 12 to 8.25 seconds—not quite long enough to read an email. 

Key Features

OptinMonster comes with a host of email marketing tools, including:

• Great drag-and-drop templates.
• Extensive integrations.
• Gamified emails.
• HTML and Java editing.
• Smart tags and targeting rules.
• Advanced scheduling.
• Team collaboration.
• One-click integration with email marketing tools and CRM software.

Pricing

Optinmonster.com doesn’t have a free version, but prices its subscriptions affordably. Right now, the platform has dropped its prices to $9.97 per month (usually $25) for the basic plan. You gain unlimited access to marketing campaigns and subscribers, no subscriber fees, segmentation, limited integrations, and it gives you one supported site.

The Plus package is $19.97 (usually $50)

The Pro package is $29.97 (usually $75)

The Growth subscription is $49.97 (usually $125)

To get the best deal, keep your eye out for special offers, like summer sales.

7. Best Email Marketing Software for Contests and Promotions: Wishpond

Wishpond is one of the most comprehensive email marketing tools we’ve looked at so far. If you can dream it, they offer it. 

Wishpond has integrations for e-commerce, email marketing, and automation.

It also has a comprehensive landing page builder loaded with features, including promotions, and a dashboard for implementing social media growth into your email marketing. 

The tool also offers online forms for you to survey your audience and ask what they’d like to see or hear more of. It’s a great option for businesses with high-ticket (products or services with a relatively high price point) offerings.

Key Features

Wishpond offers affordable tools for email marketing, like:

• Landing page builder with templates and customizations.
• Easy-to-design contests and promotions.
• Referral suite with lead captures, generation options, pop-ups, and link sharing.
• Advanced automation options.
• Email builder, customization, and interaction.
• A/B testing tools.
• Email API for high-volume users.

Pricing

You’ll find a comprehensive list of features with Wishpond, but they don’t offer free email marketing tools. You can sign up for a 30-minute demonstration that includes a free trial. They’ll also walk you through the pricing options.

Prices are $199 for the Rapid Growth subscription, $299 for the Starting Out Deal, and $299 for the Everything You Need Package.

Note: this tool might not be the best fit if you don’t have an established email list of at least 100 people.

8. Best Email Marketing Software for Automation: Brevo

Automation is Brevo’s main selling point, along with its great workflow, targeted campaigns, triggers, and lead scores.

Brevo aims to make email marketing easier and more efficient, save costs, and protect your bottom line. It offers a comprehensive CRM and tools for email marketing, such as templates, landing pages, and even social media integration, all in one place.

I mentioned earlier that email marketing offers an awesome ROI compared to social media. However, designing and executing a successful strategy can take a long time. With Brevo’s guidance, you can truly have the “best of both worlds” with this email marketing tool.

Key Features

Brevo’s email marketing software includes the following features:

• Integrations with e-commerce platforms.
• Automation elements.
• WordPress plugin with a 4.5-star rating.
• Free CRM system.
• Email, SMS, and WhatsApp marketing.
• AI for emails for creating better content and sending emails at the best times for your mailing list.
• 99 percent email deliverability rate

Pricing

Affordability takes center stage with Brevo. Their free plan gives you free email marketing tools like an email template library, email personalization, customizable email templates, campaigns, and up to 300 emails a day. If you want to take it up a notch, the Starter plan is $6 per month, and the Business plan starts at $13. You need to request a demo for Enterprise pricing.

9. Best Email Marketing Software for Funnels: GetResponse

You need to build your sales funnel and get your email marketing tools before creating an email list, and that’s what GetResponse is all about. You can make your entire funnel using its email marketing software and even implement a live chat feature on your site.  

Key Features

With GetResponse, you’ll get the following tools for your email marketing campaigns.

• Powerful automation enables detailed list segmentation.
• Plenty of testing options to figure out what converts.
• Funnel and landing page builder.
• Live chat, social media, and SEO features.
• AI writing assistant for emails
• Launch high-income campaigns fast with the AI Campaign Generator.
• A 99 percent deliverability rate when customers use email marketing best practices and maintaining excellent relationships with industry-leading entities in email marketing and spam prevention.
• Extensive selection of automation, e-commerce, paid ads tools, and more.

Pricing

GetResponse’s pricing plans let you pick from the features that matter most to you. At the moment, the prices are $13.2 (usually $19) for the Email plan, $41.10 (usually $59) for the Marketing Automation plan, and $82.9 (usually $119) for the e-commerce plan. 

The GetResponse Max Enterprise deal has custom pricing, and you need to contact GetResponse for a demo.

10. Best Email Marketing Software for Content Creators: ConvertKit

According to ConvertKit, creatives sent 28,456,533,134 emails in 2023. That’s 902 every second. How do you get noticed among all that noise?

When you want your personal brand to stand out, ConvertKit’s email marketing tools will help you appeal to your audience. It offers a landing page builder, solid deliverability, and support for content creators.

ConvertKit has a simple and clear interface. It provides a user-friendly and clean writing and design workspace with plenty of tools for email marketing and engaging your audience.

The email designer gives you:

• Tools to automate your email marketing.
• Recommendations, creator network, forms, and landing plans to grow your audience
• Monetize your content with paid recommendations, newsletters, and commerce. You can join the Sponsor Network if you have 10,000 subscribers and publish once a week.
• Easy-to-use templates.
• Clutter-free writing space.
• Email filtering and scheduling.
• Run targeted campaigns.
• Sell digital products and build your subscriber/follower base.

Pricing

If you have 10,000 subscribers or fewer, you can use ConvertKit’s tools through its free tier subscription. The free package is pretty extensive and includes unlimited landing pages, web forms, and email broadcasts.

The Creator deal is $25 monthly ($290 billed yearly). It’s open to anyone with 1,000 subscribers or fewer, and you can remove ConvertKit’s branding.

The Pro subscription is for creators with up to 1,000 subscribers who are scaling their business. It costs $50 monthly ($590 billed yearly)

FAQs

Why do I need email marketing tools?

These tools allow you to create, send, and track email campaigns and reach your ideal audience more effectively.
Features like email templates, automated scheduling, A/B testing, and analytics all maximize your marketing efforts and engage your customers/prospects.

What are some popular email marketing tools?

Popular email marketing tools include ConvertKit, MailChimp, and GetResponse.

Are there any free email marketing tools available?

Several tools offer free tiers, like Omnisend, MailChimp, Stripo, Brevo, and ConvertKit.

How do email marketing tools help improve campaign performance?

Email marketing tools provide automation, personalization, and analytics. They make it easier to run your campaigns and reach your audience with target precision. Plus, analytics enable you to understand open, click-through, and conversion rates to make your campaigns even better.

Can I automate my email marketing workflows with these tools?

Platforms like Drip, Wishpond, and Brevo all have automation features. Check out each tool individually to see which is most suitable for you.

Conclusion

It’s clear that email marketing tools can help businesses of all sizes grow. 

When choosing the right tool for your business, consider factors like ease of use, quality of automation features, advanced segmentation options, integration with other platforms, compliance with regulatory entities, A/B testing capabilities, and each platform’s analytics.

This can help guide your decision about the best email marketing software to build your list, increase conversions, and ultimately generate more revenue. You can also check out my email marketing basics guide or use this free email marketing audit tool as a starting point before choosing the best email marketing tools to achieve your goals.